Unit Testing ASP.NET
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From: Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm on 18 Mar 2010 07:57 Thanks Andy, Yes, the idea of leveraging automated tests to perform some of the routine and mundane actions we pay people to do every month likely came too late. In my group, and I would suspect many groups in the IT world, we spend 300+ man-hours to test simple functionalities in our web application as part of each release. Based on some of the simple things we do it seemed so likely that Unit Tests could perform some or most of these evaluations for us thus leaving different more complex evaluations to be performed by humans. The UnitTesting framework in .NET 3.5 comes so close to providing exactly what we needed for our ASP.NET project, and I was hoping I was just missing one small piece of the puzzle. Perhaps "Unit Tests" or whatever people want to call them are not the right solution for this problem, but I can't be the only developer on an IT team facing these challenges. Automated tests should be able to be written to perform simple validations against web forms to ensure future changes by other developers don't break existing functionality. It's an interesting discussion to see how other ASP.NET shops EFFICIENTLY handle this scenario if not via Unit Tests. Again, thanks for your comments and opinion. It's too late for us to go MVC or MVP with this project, so I'll either abandon the benefits of adopting Unit Tests or find another solution (perhaps the Web Testing functionality of Visual Team Studio). Worst case scenario we'll just keep doing what we have been doing for years... :( -Rudy "Andy O'Neill" wrote: > > "Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm" <Unit Test ASP.NET > WebForm(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message > news:3640266D-A0D6-4E2A-994F-62E9F00FDDE7(a)microsoft.com... > > Alright, so I'm trying to do the right thing and bring the concept of Unit > > Testing into our ASP.NET Web Application, but we're running into walls > > left > <<>> > > Any thoughts? > > > Well my first thought is about "do the right thing". > You see people were developing for years without automated testing and > managing to test their applications as they developed. > In fact we called it unit testing, but it involved the developer or another > developer. > Set that aside for a moment. > Then there is the fact that you seem to have a mature project. > Introducing unit testing into a mature project is a bad ide IMO. > You will find it is a huge overhead for little gain. > Well, unless your project is chock full of bugs and your devs prone to > changing things willy nilly. > The time to adopt unit testing is at the start of a project. > If you need it then you want to consider MVC or MVP. > > . >
From: Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm on 18 Mar 2010 08:07 Thanks Gregory, I will look into what is available via Web Testing in Visual Studio Team Edition. Hopefully, there are some tools within that product that help us better manage our testing needs based on our unique requirements. I would still love to hear from somebody familiar with the UnitTesting framework in .NET 3.5 and specifically why a Unit Test can dive into a ASPX partial class and perform actions, but you cannot get a PrivateObject to construct itself within a UserControl and at runtime use the same reflection methods (GetProperty,SetProperty, Invoke, etc) to access its members. Thanks again, -Rudy P.S. I have no idea why MSDN is using "Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm" as my username in these posts. Sorry... "Gregory A. Beamer" wrote: > UI is damned near impossible to unit test. There are tools to reduce the > pain, but the fact you are mixing tags with code makes it very difficult. If > you truly want to unit test UI, try ASP.NET MVC, as it gives you better > tools. For web testing, the project type does not matter, so you can do it > on any web project. Visual Studio Team has the web testing. There are open > source web testing tools. > > Another option, or an option you can also use WITH web testing, is move as > much code out of the web project as possible, so web testing becomes an > integration test and your functional code can be fully tested with unit > tests. This would be the direction I would head, as things that require > input end up testing more than the unit anyway (ie, UI testing), so the > concept of a unit test on a web UI is rather worthless. Integration and user > acceptance testing are different things. > > One nice framework, for automated user acceptance testing, is the Fit > Framework. You should also look at FitNesse. They are not .NET specific, but > very useful for running a wide variety of UI cases. > > Hope this helps! > > -- > Peace and Grace, > Greg > > Twitter: @gbworld > Blog: http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com > > ************************************************ > | Think outside the box! | > ************************************************ > > "Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm" <Unit Test ASP.NET > WebForm(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message > news:3640266D-A0D6-4E2A-994F-62E9F00FDDE7(a)microsoft.com... > > Alright, so I'm trying to do the right thing and bring the concept of Unit > > Testing into our ASP.NET Web Application, but we're running into walls > > left > > and right. The biggest challenge we're facing right now involves unit > > testing a .ASPX page where the assertion needs to evaluate a property of a > > .ASCX user control included on this page. My thought was that we could > > construct a PrivateObject the same way we do for a ASPX and be able to use > > the po.GetProperty method to retrieve a property value at run-time for the > > user control to test the assertion. However, we receive the > > System.MissingMethodException exception when attempting to access this > > property that is defined in the code-behind of the .ASCX control. Is it > > possible to accomplish what I am trying or is some other method necessary? > > > > Here is an example of the Test Method code: > > > > <TestMethod()> _ > > <HostType("ASP.NET")> _ > > <UrlToTest("http://localhost/test/MyProspectsDetail.aspx")> _ > > <AspNetDevelopmentServerHost("C:\Projects\Test\Source", "/test")> _ > > Public Sub MyTest() > > 'System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break() > > Dim p As Page = TestContext.RequestedPage > > Dim po As PrivateObject = New PrivateObject(p) > > Dim mnu As UserControl = > > p.Master.FindControl("cphSFA").FindControl("PageMenu") > > Dim pp As PrivateObject = New PrivateObject(mnu) > > pp.GetProperty("ItemEnabled", New Object()) > > 'Additional code would normally follow here, but the exception is > > encountered above and additional code wouldn't be reached, anyway. Also, > > no > > assignment coded above intentionally to point out the exception, otherwise > > the variable would just receive a value of "Nothing". > > Assert.IsFalse(True, "Test") > > > > End Sub > > > > Any thoughts? > >
From: Mr. Arnold on 18 Mar 2010 08:42 Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm wrote: > Mr. Arnold, I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to my > question. However, I don't believe a lecture on unit test versus functional > test serves any benefit to the specific question asked here. It does serve a benefit as one needs to know and understand which one needs to be used. And most developers don't know, which produces the mistake you are making in so called Unit Testing. > > The .ASPX in this case has logic responsible for identifying if a particular > user has permission to perform a specific action. And that is a poor Web page or Web application UI design, where the Web page and the codebehind file has business rules in it. > Our attempt at a unit test > was to pass in a certain condition (a specific user) then execute the private > Sub that is responsible for enabling/disabling a control (that is within the > user control) and finally evaluate that that operation enabled or disabled > the user control's menu option correctly. And controls and all can be passed to a Model View Presenter through the IView of the presenter with object injection into the presenter using like methods in the presenter. You can disable and enable controls. You can load the controls and read data in the controls, doing a get passing the control and manipulating the control anyway you need and giving the control back to the page from the presenter. Because after all, the control is an 'object'. And you Unit Test the presenter for expected behavior and not functional test a page. If you're going to functional test a page, you might as well set debug break points and visually watch on it in single step. > > In my opinion, it is very sensible to have ASPX code behind responsible for > setting properties of controls based on business logic that only exists > within that page. No, you're behind the times doing classic ASP programming. The UI of an ASP.NET UI should be as dumb as possible nothing in the codebehind file but methods in the codebehind file passing control to the presenter method of a MVP that has the business rules for the method. And presenter methods method acts upon the control based on business rules in the presenter. The presenter gives the control back to page. It's the presenter that has the control and the Web page itself is dumb. > Given what Microsoft has already provided in the > UnitTesting framework I was asking if it was possible to leverage its members > to access UserControls within the ASPX much like we can access the members of > the page itself. I don't think so, or it will be very hard to do so. It something I wouldn't attempt it, using a test harness to test a Web page. > > The intent was to write and evaluate a very simple test. This test only > touches one very specific function of the ASPX and in that sense I refer to > it as a "Unit Test". What this type of "Test" should actually be called is > academic in my opinion. And here you are making the mistake of not knowing what type of test is needed to pass the test and do it painlessly. > My question was simply given the tools available is > the below scenario intended to be possible and if so what are ways to > accomplish it. From other responses I am getting the impression that this is > currently not possible or extremely over complicated outside of MVC. There is also Model View Presenter MVP a later offspring of MVC. > Fortunately, if somebody comes to this thread in the future wanting to know > the definition of "Unit Test" versus "Functional Test" they may also be > helped. Thanks for your contribution. > Not to be smart here, but you make the mistake of not knowing the difference between the two and when to do a unit test and do it successfully, based on expected behavior. As a opposed to doing a functional test, that is based on expected functionality for expected results unsuccessfully. You can't mock away anything which is what unit test and behavior is about.
From: sloan on 18 Mar 2010 10:18 //The .ASPX in this case has logic responsible for identifying if a particular user has permission to perform a specific action. // Since your other threads seem to indicate that "you're in deep now", then there is not good solution for you. My suggestion: Move your logic out of the Presentation Layer. Move it into a BAL. Write unit tests against the BAL. Is it worth it? You'll have to answer that........... But mistakes up front will always cost you 10X, 100X, 1000X down the road. //better manage our testing needs based on our unique requirements.// Your requirements are not unique. In fact, they are way too common. Mistakes up front will always cost you 10X, 100X, 1000X down the road. Try to learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. UnitTests (and for you managers out there, TIME TO DEVELOP UNIT TESTS) should be a beginning of the project inclusion, not a retro fit. I know its easy to say "you should have"...and you're looking for a solution now, but this is one of those places that it is very hard to retro when its a after-the-fact situation. "Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm" <Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:3640266D-A0D6-4E2A-994F-62E9F00FDDE7(a)microsoft.com... > Alright, so I'm trying to do the right thing and bring the concept of Unit > Testing into our ASP.NET Web Application, but we're running into walls > left > and right. The biggest challenge we're facing right now involves unit > testing a .ASPX page where the assertion needs to evaluate a property of a > .ASCX user control included on this page. My thought was that we could > construct a PrivateObject the same way we do for a ASPX and be able to use > the po.GetProperty method to retrieve a property value at run-time for the > user control to test the assertion. However, we receive the > System.MissingMethodException exception when attempting to access this > property that is defined in the code-behind of the .ASCX control. Is it > possible to accomplish what I am trying or is some other method necessary? > > Here is an example of the Test Method code: > > <TestMethod()> _ > <HostType("ASP.NET")> _ > <UrlToTest("http://localhost/test/MyProspectsDetail.aspx")> _ > <AspNetDevelopmentServerHost("C:\Projects\Test\Source", "/test")> _ > Public Sub MyTest() > 'System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break() > Dim p As Page = TestContext.RequestedPage > Dim po As PrivateObject = New PrivateObject(p) > Dim mnu As UserControl = > p.Master.FindControl("cphSFA").FindControl("PageMenu") > Dim pp As PrivateObject = New PrivateObject(mnu) > pp.GetProperty("ItemEnabled", New Object()) > 'Additional code would normally follow here, but the exception is > encountered above and additional code wouldn't be reached, anyway. Also, > no > assignment coded above intentionally to point out the exception, otherwise > the variable would just receive a value of "Nothing". > Assert.IsFalse(True, "Test") > > End Sub > > Any thoughts? >
From: Andy O'Neill on 18 Mar 2010 11:59
"Unit Test ASP.NET WebForm" <UnitTestASPNETWebForm(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:38909C6D-23A5-47DC-830E-F3B9478CA65D(a)microsoft.com... > Thanks Andy, > > Yes, the idea of leveraging automated tests to perform some of the routine > and mundane actions we pay people to do every month likely came too late. > In > my group, and I would suspect many groups in the IT world, we spend 300+ > man-hours to test simple functionalities in our web application as part of > each release. Based on some of the simple things we do it seemed so > likely > that Unit Tests could perform some or most of these evaluations for us > thus > leaving different more complex evaluations to be performed by humans. Well if that's a release every few months then the costs will be considerable. It ought to be relatively easy to justify spending time refactoring. As others have suggested, start moving code. Start adding tests. Keep on chipping away and you should start to save some time. I think it's probably worth mentioning that just because you have automated unit testing in place you're never going to be able to stop doing manual tests completely. The next problem you will have is probably too strong a coupling to the database. You need to work on that as well and try and get to a position where you can mock all dependencies and test just a class at a time. Google mocking and inversion of control. |